a thought: does every major public release of this game since 3.02 divide the fanbase even more?

[IronChar]

Ironically 3.0 was the first version that didn't label itself as a demo. The most broken iteration was considered the big release.

earlier versions of 2 had some pretty broken characters

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

As a league player, I can't really sympathize with people wanting one static version.

If the game is still supported, balance changes should not stop as it adds life to the game.

How often you do it is a valid question, please no 2 week patches like in season 2 league please and thank you.

 

[Kurri ★]

As a league player, I can't really sympathize with people wanting one static version.

If the game is still supported, balance changes should not stop as it adds life to the game.

How often you do it is a valid question, please no 2 week patches like in season 2 league please and thank you.

As a DotA 2 player, trying out league was the strangest thing to me. I swear there was a patch every few days.

 

[MLGF]

Constant patching does stop people from reaching the ceiling IMO. And honestly I want to see people at their limits for this game.

I'm all for gold myself.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

As a DotA 2 player, trying out league was the strangest thing to me. I swear there was a patch every few days.

That tamed down really fast when they realized it was a problem.

DOTA2 does it every 3 months I think? League is about every month but instead they don't do large sweeping changes unless needed but rather slow gradual ones. Though a large changes to AP items will happen with league soon but I feel as though this is meant to address a larger issue with items in league.

Which is what I can see what some people have issues with in PM if cast wide changes happen every patch. This happens in smash 4 a little bit but as badly as it happens in PM. So many changes happen and it is hard to keep it settled with a meta.

I think the leaving the game to settle and never patch is a bad idea if the game is still being supported.

 

[Bleck]

oh really? are you sure about that?

yes

 

[ShadowGanon]

As a league player, I can't really sympathize with people wanting one static version.

If the game is still supported, balance changes should not stop as it adds life to the game.

How often you do it is a valid question, please no 2 week patches like in season 2 league please and thank you.

MY PEOPLE!!!

But seriously, though, patches are fun to me. Like someone said, it truly is like opening a Christmas present.

 

[TreK]

you do recognize ivy was super buffed as a whole, right?

I sure as hell don't. The buffs we got only matter in the matchups we already won in 3.5 because Ivy still can't grab top tiers. Getting buffs on what happens after you grab genuinely doesn't matter in the matchups Ivysaur loses.
As far as I'm concerned 3.6b Ivy is a slightly less ridiculous 3.02 Ivy. How polarized is she ? Hella.

And to get vack on the topic of "do updates divide the players", that's why there are a bunch of Ivies who don't plan on playing 3.6 right now, Papa and myself being the two most vocal about it.

 

[DrinkingFood]

all these flavors and you chose to be salty

 

[qwertz143]

Well, all I can say is that with each patch, we get frustrated in the beginning, hate on the developers, and after sometime we get used to the playstyle and we continue.
I remember, when half the fanbase freaked out to Zero Suit Samus' changes and threatened to stop following Project M. Even I, was disappointed with Kirby's nerfs in 3.6b. But after a week of playing, I got used to this playstyle: instead of focusing on edgeguarding and reverse-ledge grabbing, I focused on dash attack combos and dair and the like. So i'm just saying it's a phase and after a few weeks, we'll start to love 3.6.
If you notice, many of the people who threatened to leave after the 3.5 update, still play as Project M if you simply put it, is still an awesome creation.

 

[TreK]

Oh right I forgot this was the Internet
Sorry for trying to bring new, interesting information to the discussion, I'll let yall get back to posting memes.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Oh right I forgot this was the Internet
Sorry for trying to bring new, interesting information to the discussion, I'll let yall get back to posting memes.

there was no new information in your post though, and it wasn't interesting either
You didn't even give any kind of detail that could be discussed, you basically said "Lol! Ivy's not buffed, she can't grab top tiers! threepointfive4lyfe!" and then got twice as salty when I responded with an equally useless statement
saying ivy can't grab top tiers is silly, no you probably won't shield grab them because most good characters have lots of ways to hit shields safely, but there are set-ups into grabs that limit opponents options drastically and make your grabs either safer or reduce the heaviness of your punishment if you whiff, making her throw buffs relevant

 

[Bleck]

having to set-up to do something that other characters don't have to is the sign of a character weakness

 

[DrinkingFood]

And there's no real indication that it's a character breaking weakness. There's a lot of characters whose raw grabbing ability is low but benefit from their grab as primarily a punishment extension tool. Additionally, tether grabs aren't inherently worse than standard grabs- tether grabs are more likely to beat moves that are only "safe" when spaced well (like an ftilt) which usually don't have great frame advantage but are too far to grab with a normal grab and are just safe enough to beat WD OoS->grab, while they lose worse to moves with good frame advantage (late aerials). I find it really silly when players of tether grab characters pretend like they actually don't have a grab. It's a slightly worse grab, and it even has some utility regular grabs don't.

 

[4tlas]

As a LoL player I am used to patches and don't mind them there. In fact I even like them. But there are at least 5 big reasons why I think I don't mind LoL patches nearly as much as PM patches.

1) The changes are overwhelmingly numbers tweaks. A character's core mechanic rarely gets altered, just the damage boosted or the cooldown increased. In PM this would equate to the damage or KBG of a move. When a mechanic does get changed, it is still pretty jarring, which in PM is equivalent to a range, BKB, frame data, or knockback angle change. These changes not only change how effective a move is, they also change the circumstances under which that move is useful. Those changes can be frustrating.

2) LoL provides reasonings in their patchnotes. I think this is a very big deal. While I don't always agree with the changes, knowing why they decided to make the change assures me that they thought about it somewhat. It also may give me some insight into something I didn't realize was a problem before. It also reassures me, when I do agree with their reasoning, that the developers are attempting to change the game in a way I approve of. The most reasoning we get from the PMDT in the notes is "to match Melee", which is generally not a direction I like without some more substantial reasoning.

3) Not all of my mains get changed every patch. In LoL, I play multiple characters. If one gets changed in a way that renders him/her "unusable", I just play a different character. In PM, I only play 1 character (Sheilda), and if either half gets altered significantly I am dramatically effected. It also doesn't help that the characters I play in LoL rarely get changes because they are low-mid tier while the characters I play in PM get constant changes. In a similar vein, not all of my opponent's characters have been changed every patch.

4) Patches are small and frequent in LoL. There are very few changes I have to adapt to, and I can be assured that if my character (or my opponent's) is ludicrously weak/strong, they will be changed again soon. In PM I have to adapt a lot and always have the character changed again just as I feel like I've finally become proficient again. And the last few patches have just been constant nerfs for me, and not just in basic ways (like I mentioned in point #1), but in playstyle-altering ones.

5) While the characters may change from patch to patch in LoL, the general game strategy usually does not. This means I am largely playing the same game but with slight nuanced changes in how I execute my strategy. In PM, the character interactions are the entire game, so most of the gameplay is altered with each patch. This means I have to relearn a lot of strategy on top of the control changes.


At first I was hopeful because this was called 3.6b. There seemed to be a chance that changes would be made relatively soon (a few months?), similar to a LoL patch. Then I saw somewhere that this was only intended to be used for bugfixes, which means I have to play this version for a whole year or so before a patch, at which point I don't even have any guarantee that I will like any part of it.

 

[Bleck]

And there's no real indication that it's a character breaking weakness.

Ivy's definitely not a topic I'm super well-versed in, but I do sort of feel like she's lacking in speed and power to make up for a longer range that's not reliably long enough to justify the weaknesses. I can understand people feeling frustrated about the grab considering the meta, but maybe that'll shift with 3.6' changes?

 

[DrinkingFood]

As a LoL player I am used to patches and don't mind them there. In fact I even like them. But there are at least 5 big reasons why I think I don't mind LoL patches nearly as much as PM patches.

1) The changes are overwhelmingly numbers tweaks. A character's core mechanic rarely gets altered, just the damage boosted or the cooldown increased. In PM this would equate to the damage or KBG of a move. When a mechanic does get changed, it is still pretty jarring, which in PM is equivalent to a range, BKB, frame data, or knockback angle change. These changes not only change how effective a move is, they also change the circumstances under which that move is useful. Those changes can be frustrating.

2) LoL provides reasonings in their patchnotes. I think this is a very big deal. While I don't always agree with the changes, knowing why they decided to make the change assures me that they thought about it somewhat. It also may give me some insight into something I didn't realize was a problem before. It also reassures me, when I do agree with their reasoning, that the developers are attempting to change the game in a way I approve of. The most reasoning we get from the PMDT in the notes is "to match Melee", which is generally not a direction I like without some more substantial reasoning.

3) Not all of my mains get changed every patch. In LoL, I play multiple characters. If one gets changed in a way that renders him/her "unusable", I just play a different character. In PM, I only play 1 character (Sheilda), and if either half gets altered significantly I am dramatically effected. It also doesn't help that the characters I play in LoL rarely get changes because they are low-mid tier while the characters I play in PM get constant changes. In a similar vein, not all of my opponent's characters have been changed every patch.

4) Patches are small and frequent in LoL. There are very few changes I have to adapt to, and I can be assured that if my character (or my opponent's) is ludicrously weak/strong, they will be changed again soon. In PM I have to adapt a lot and always have the character changed again just as I feel like I've finally become proficient again. And the last few patches have just been constant nerfs for me, and not just in basic ways (like I mentioned in point #1), but in playstyle-altering ones.

5) While the characters may change from patch to patch in LoL, the general game strategy usually does not. This means I am largely playing the same game but with slight nuanced changes in how I execute my strategy. In PM, the character interactions are the entire game, so most of the gameplay is altered with each patch. This means I have to relearn a lot of strategy on top of the control changes.


At first I was hopeful because this was called 3.6b. There seemed to be a chance that changes would be made relatively soon (a few months?), similar to a LoL patch. Then I saw somewhere that this was only intended to be used for bugfixes, which means I have to play this version for a whole year or so before a patch, at which point I don't even have any guarantee that I will like any part of it.

1) tweaking numbers doesn't usually fix bad design in games, LoL is probably content with that but PMDT is not
2) Reasonings for patch notes in smash would be beyond the understand of most players, they would disagree with it just as much with or without the patch notes because most players aren't actually very good at PM, have bad fundamentals (even some top players have mediocre fundamentals and just learn their characters really really well) and can't translate smash theory from words->intuition or vice-versa
3)playing only one character is your fault, I have like 5 quality back-up secondaries in-case PMDT ever goes full nuclear on ROB
4)Small and frequent patches contributed to the failings of brawl+, it's just a bad way to release things because you give way less time for the meta to develop, and if big changes have to be made, you don't get to see the full extent of them nor how far players can push new tools/tweaked tools in the span of just a couple months/few months/or less
5)An unfortunate consequence of the above noted necessities/design philosophies

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

1) tweaking numbers doesn't usually fix bad design in games, LoL is probably content with that but PMDT is not
2) Reasonings for patch notes in smash would be beyond the understand of most players, they would disagree with it just as much with or without the patch notes because most players aren't actually very good at PM, have bad fundamentals (even some top players have mediocre fundamentals and just learn their characters really really well) and can't translate smash theory from words->intuition or vice-versa
3)playing only one character is your fault, I have like 5 quality back-up secondaries in-case PMDT ever goes full nuclear on ROB
4)Small and frequent patches contributed to the failings of brawl+, it's just a bad way to release things because you give way less time for the meta to develop, and if big changes have to be made, you don't get to see the full extent of them nor how far players can push new tools/tweaked tools in the span of just a couple months/few months/or less
5)An unfortunate consequence of the above noted necessities/design philosophies

1) League needs time to do such, so it makes it so the character isn't pushing everyone down while they work out a solution that fits the character and makes it healthy instead of shoving it out the door.

2) I would still be helpful and actually give insight on design instead of leaving people n the dark. What about people who aren't bad at the game? They deserve to know.

3) He is comparing fighting games to a moba, different situations. Even then in a fighting game I find it to be far worse to make something that bad than in a MOBA where counterpicks and comps are far more possible with team work.

4) On the flip slide, you make large drastic changes in patches and you end up with people needing to do massive adaptation which an invalidate tournaments. Even league does a "wait X amount of time before pro players use the new patch" for LCS play. Small little changes as small as a month apart, if not 4 weeks, is perfectly acceptable. Games like league do this and only do drastic changes at season changes or when it is absolutely needed.

5) PM has this problem a lot worse than most fighters, try some characters from 3.02 to 3.5. Some of them changed a lot.

 

[Bleck]

even some top players have mediocre fundamentals

to be fair, this is probably because nobody seems to actually have a concrete definition of what "fundamentals" are (especially in Smash), which is sort of what Ryu is getting at in the first place

 

[PlateProp]

Damn, bleck going in and having a real argument for once

I'd love reasonings behind changes made just because i'm convinced that cmart spins in a swivel chair and hits the keyboard and whatever comes out is what Squirtle/Bowser gets for the next patch semikappa

 

[4tlas]

1) tweaking numbers doesn't usually fix bad design in games, LoL is probably content with that but PMDT is not
2) Reasonings for patch notes in smash would be beyond the understand of most players, they would disagree with it just as much with or without the patch notes because most players aren't actually very good at PM, have bad fundamentals (even some top players have mediocre fundamentals and just learn their characters really really well) and can't translate smash theory from words->intuition or vice-versa
3)playing only one character is your fault, I have like 5 quality back-up secondaries in-case PMDT ever goes full nuclear on ROB
4)Small and frequent patches contributed to the failings of brawl+, it's just a bad way to release things because you give way less time for the meta to develop, and if big changes have to be made, you don't get to see the full extent of them nor how far players can push new tools/tweaked tools in the span of just a couple months/few months/or less
5)An unfortunate consequence of the above noted necessities/design philosophies

I am not saying that PM should be done the same way as LoL, nor am I saying I think LoL's system is better. All I was saying is that each individual patch from LoL is not as jarring as one for PM. As for your arguments:

1) My point is that most of the changes are not design changes because there are SO MANY changes. Imagine each Dev build the PMDT goes through as a full patch. How often would a change simply be number tweaks as opposed to completely new moves?
2) Ok, so most people are idiots. That applies in LoL too. Doesn't mean anything about the fact that I like LoL's patches because they provide patch notes, and I would like PM's more if they did too.
3) I didn't say anything about PMDT ruining my one character being their fault? All I said was most people play multiple characters seriously in LoL, while most play only 1 or 2 characters seriously in PM. Thus an individual patch does not automatically screw up my game in LoL. In other words, it is more likely that a patch actually won't affect me severely.
4) No, its just a different method for a different game. Again, I didn't say that one was better.
5) I'm not sure what you mean here, but I think we agree?

 

[BuddyBooNW]

Am I the only one who LIKES the change between versions?

Yes.

 

[MegaMissingno]

I'd love reasonings behind changes made just because i'm convinced that cmart spins in a swivel chair and hits the keyboard and whatever comes out is what Squirtle/Bowser gets for the next patch semikappa

What I really want to know at this point is the reasoning behind Puff not changing.

 

[4tlas]

What I really want to know at this point is the reasoning behind Puff not changing.

I believe it may be similar to many of the other changes we have seen in 3.5 and 3.6:

"to match Melee"

 

[Trollinguy]

I think the lack of changes to puff are due to the fact that puff really isnt that bad of a character, and any changes to puff would really really change her meta. As another thread somewhere said, puff is like a grenade because of her rest. Any combos that lead to rest = stock.

 

[MEnKIRBZ]

Rebuff Kirby swallowside

 

[qwertz143]

Rebuff Kirby swallowside

Rebuff reverse aerial cutter edgegrab pls

 

[Stryker]

As it seems to be the direction of this thread, I will say this

It sucked to put a bunch on time into mario and ZSS in 3.02 only to have them feel unusable in 3.5. (By unusable, I specifically mean outclassed by the majority.)
It sucked to put in a bunch of time to lucario in 3.5 only to feel him unusable in 3.6
I understand that these characters maybe needed what happened, or required the nerfs. That's fine. I've played Zyra in LoL since day one even through every single nerf. I've loved C9 since they appeared, even though they are playing like super ass right now.
I understand what happened may have needed to happen, but the perspective of players should be considered. I hate that everytime PM comes out, I have to literally play every single character again, and re choose a main because characters get changed so drastically.
Using lucario as an example. I choose not to use him anymore because I kill myself off stage due to not having airdodge out of up b. Do I think it was good balancing? Maybe. But as I player, I've programmed habits and trained myself on certain positioning that used to work, but gets me killed now. So, now I move forward to start all over at the beginning with a new character.
Its frustrating. I can understand it from the dev POV, but it sucks from a player POV with fighting games because of the investment made with characters.
I've started just doing all my practice in Melee and just translating over things that are unchanged, but I feel like that will stop working soon too.

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

As it seems to be the direction of this thread, I will say this

It sucked to put a bunch on time into mario and ZSS in 3.02 only to have them feel unusable in 3.5. (By unusable, I specifically mean outclassed by the majority.)

Have to disagree with you on the Mario front. He feels very much the same, just not as stupid as he was back in 3.02. Nothing they've done to Mario has drastically changed his strengths, people just wanted to go for the broken characters and have probably gravitated away from him as he's now a solid honest character.

 

[MEnKIRBZ]

What they need to do is stop nerfing characters that aren't even considered top tier

 

[Stryker]

Have to disagree with you on the Mario front. He feels very much the same, just not as stupid as he was back in 3.02. Nothing they've done to Mario has drastically changed his strengths, people just wanted to go for the broken characters and have probably gravitated away from him as he's now a solid honest character.

I understand he is really strong still, but to me, when they took away the easy wall jump out of kit, I knew that I had to move onto other characters because he was simply outclassed by characters like Lucario in 3.5 with more mobility options.
Not saying he was definitively worse, just that I felt other characters were more enjoyable personally, and like I could take advantage of their potential more.
Mobility is fun

 

[W.A.C.]

3.5 definitely split the community. Many players, including ZeRo, quit the game altogether over the changes made in 3.5. It practically felt like a different game. Project M 3.02 felt like a game that was balanced to make everyone like Fox. Some people loved that approach, some people hated it. Project M 3.5 felt like an attempt to make everyone A and B tier, so even bottom ten characters like Olimar got nerfed hard. It was ridiculous. It turned off a lot of Brawl players who hated some of the changes (such as the worsened recoveries) and it turned off some of the Melee players who preferred Melee's S tiers in Project M to remain S tier. With Project M 3.6's decision to nerf Fox again, it's going to turn off even more Melee players...which is bad since most of the Brawl players have dropped this game. It's a shame Project M 3.5 went the direction it did, since 3.02 came the closest to uniting the Melee and Brawl communities together.

Also, smash 4 balances minimally? Tell that to diddy mains.

Yeah, Diddy Kong mains such as myself are not pleased with how the balance patches are being handled. Not to mention 1.0.4 nerfed a ton of the cast back in November.

 

[GP&B]

Sorry to be a downer but there's no way that 3.02 would have been a good game in the long run.

 

[W.A.C.]

I watch a match like this and see a game that looks considerably more fun...to the point where I would consider playing it competitively instead of Smash 4 if it was still like this.

Sorry to be a downer but there's no way that 3.02 would have been a good game in the long run.

Guess the same could be said about Melee then? You know, a game where eight broken character dominate the whole metagame?

 

[Strong Badam]

It's funny you link that video, because both players were really sick of 3.02 by the time 3.5 had been announced. Luck had come to the conclusion that his character was broken and Infinity had announced on FB that he was quitting until 3.5 came out due to the rampant balance issues present in 3.02. Both continue to play Project M, though Infinity's been busy with real life stuff so he doesn't come to tournaments very often anymore. Luck is at almost every weekly.

3.02 was a really fun game... for a year. I had a great time with it, as did many other players, but it was pretty obvious near the end that it wouldn't have lasted very long. 3.5 and 3.6 are obviously much better, and as a result we can participate a healthy, long-term metagame instead of a short-lived one filled with toxicity.

 

[Bleck]

Guess the same could be said about Melee then?

yes

 

[GP&B]

Guess the same could be said about Melee then? You know, a game where eight broken character dominate the whole metagame?

I mean, PM 3.02 was basically that but with more broken characters. Melee's legacy and heavily developed meta are honestly the only things keeping it alive because the game has stagnated greatly. You do not watch Melee for a diverse cast of characters and hell, even players. PM on the other hand should be entirely against this and 3.02 crippled that.

 

[Rawkobo]

I mean, PM 3.02 was basically that but with more broken characters. Melee's legacy and heavily developed meta are honestly the only things keeping it alive because the game has stagnated greatly. You do not watch Melee for a diverse cast of characters and hell, even players. PM on the other hand should be entirely against this and 3.02 crippled that.

I watch Melee for the players because it gives me a chance to very, very slightly diversify character mains and what they know/apply. I'm probably stretching to find a way to enjoy/love the game, but it works.

As for the subject at hand, I've said various things in a couple other threads, but I'll reiterate them here:

- 3.5 was a patch where I felt like getting good was the only answer, and 3.6 continues that trend while still offering interesting options for character diversity and keeping things fresh. 3.02 did not have that for me as a Mario main coming from 2.6 because not only was my character still busted (despite Melee shields fixing a portion of the problem), it made it hard to actually learn the game when all I really needed was my project and my fist most of the time, as well as 2-3 silly grab setups.

- The "division of the community" came primarily from the direction of streaming. Places had to drop streaming PM for the most part if they wanted to keep their sub buttons, and as you can no doubt tell, those places that still do so either do it under other channels without sub buttons or are dedicated people that need to put a donate button on their channel (seriously, Alex, if you're somehow on the forums and you come across this post, I didn't see a PayPal link on your Twitch, I want to fund you). With the lack of consistent streaming on what people define as "major Smash channels" dwindling, people tend to call PM a "dead game" because it gets no viewership on those channels. It's why you get people on Twitch who are like "PM is still streamed?" and all that; partially they're trolling because obviously it is, but major streaming has scaled back considerably, even with Chibo still willing to have PM content on his own channel.

- Nobody's ever been fully satisfied with a patch, not even 3.02. 3.02 might've been one of the first times the complaints about changes didn't come in hard until several months later or the summer, but they still came up, especially balance-related ones. People from all games were coming to play, but you still heard people from all three saying the game needed major balance adjustments. Every patch prior "divided" the community, but nobody cares, because those who complained either shut up or left because they weren't dedicated enough. Same thing's happened so far and the game's stayed healthy.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

3.02 could have worked of the cast as a whole was brought up but that is hard abs likely to still be a balance nightmare, small gradual changes are better in the long run.

 

[Kurri ★]

Melee's legacy and heavily developed meta are honestly the only things keeping it alive because the game has stagnated greatly.

Nuh uh! There's this new tech that let's Fox do even more things! 14 years and the meta is still evolving!

3.02 could have worked of the cast as a whole was brought up but that is hard abs likely to still be a balance nightmare

I'd go as far to say that it's actually impossible. Even if you did balance everyone, 3.02 still had a lot of issues